By Adriana Fallico
The competitive fire inside Julianna Price was first lit by her love for soccer.
Though she’s played the game since elementary school—even playing on an all-boys team for four years—many of her memories associated with soccer are associated with feeling unwelcome.
“I got a lot of comments from other boys on other teams saying, ‘Shouldn’t you be in the kitchen, why are you here?’” said Price. “At 12 to 13 years old, boys are already saying that.”
As if that animosity wasn’t enough, it wasn’t just the boys on the field she had to deal with.
“Parents on the other teams would ask ‘Why is there a girl here?’ and tell the referee that there should not be a girl playing,” said Price. “Do you not realize that you are talking about a young girl who just wants to play a game?”
Despite the antagonizing jabs, Price wanted to prove that she had a place in soccer.
“The boys were skeptical and would say ‘You are not going to be a good addition to the team and you won’t be as good as us because you are a girl,’” said Price. “I remember being like, ‘So shut up and watch me.’”
Following her high school graduation, she went on to play for the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks soccer team as a defender for two years, but due to a “horrible coaching and environment,” she decided to part ways with the team.
“It was rough,” said Price. “It was competitive in a bad way—girls trying to tear each other down…which is horrible.”
She explained, “Soccer would make me anxious, and it would give me way too much stress.”
After leaving the Golden Hawks, Price began to explore her interests outside of soccer. Hungry to continue her education, she enrolled as a master’s of science student at the University of Toronto in September 2024.
Although Price always knew she didn’t want to be a professional soccer player, she continued to play at university because of her unwavering love for the game.
“I wanted to do it as long as I could do it, but in the right environment,” she said.
Price’s upbringing in sports is one many female athletes can relate to—a journey of being beaten down by the masculine culture of sports, ones that little girls dream of playing professionally.
Despite the tribulations many women face, women’s sports are consistently categorized in media coverage as inspiring and aspiring. The recognition of the trailblazing work and play of female athletes in a male-dominated space is valuable for the next generation of athletes. However, restricting discourse around women’s sports to this distinction of breaking through and finding opportunity can belittle the status of women’s sports to simply breaking down sexist barriers.
In a Trinitonian column, writer Elise Hester questioned why viewership for women’s sports is so low and came to the conclusion that people viewed women’s sports as a “lesser version of their male counterparts” due to patriarchal standards set against women. She also states that women’s sports may never be viewed as equal to men’s in her lifetime.
“I remember being like ‘So shut up and watch me’”
Sexism towards women’s sports has been intertwined with expectations surrounding women outside the field. According to Kristin Wilde’s research article Women in Sport: Gender Stereotypes in the Past and Present, “female athletes have a subordinate position in the sports world,” which can be blamed on “the patriarchal nature of both society and sport.”
This is a sentiment that Jayna Hefford, executive vice president of hockey operations of the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) agrees with.
While the league is still highlighting its milestones as a behemoth in women’s professional sports during its second season, team management is now looking to focus attention on the play on the ice. This shift can be seen in many major league women’s sports—including the WNBA, which has been in existence since 1996—directing the focus surrounding the teams and athletes from one’s gender to the game itself.
“Although that excitement and feeling of being grateful still exists in our buildings in a big way, we now see a lot more around on-ice play, the competition, physicality, the standings,” said Hefford. “As athletes, you want to be looked at as an athlete in your sport solely, so I think there certainly has been a shift in the way people watch us now.”
The emergence surrounding women’s sports has been influential even to the women who are not aiming to begin a professional athletic career.
Price cannot play soccer in the same competitive capacity she used to due to injuries, but still has aspirations to contribute to a women’s league.
For now, her focus lies on making a different dream come true: opening her own pediatric occupational therapy clinic. It’s the prospect of working in professional women’s sports on the sidelines that makes Price’s eyes twinkle.
“As athletes, you want to be looked at as an athlete in your sport solely, so I think there certainly has been a shift in the way people watch us now”
According to United Nations (UN) Women, seven out of 10 people now consistently watch women’s sports, showing how the continuous success of women’s sports is making its presence known. The mounting uptake of women’s sports provides the opportunity for women like Price to work in sports across a multitude of different sports sectors.
Simran Sandhra was the kid who never got tired of running around a field. She frequently switched between playing house league and rep soccer for a few years, telling friends and family that she would someday be a professional player.
“People would laugh at me and say ‘No, get realistic, you are not going to be an athlete, you are not that good and it isn’t realistic for girls to do that,’” she said.
This criticism was part of why she gave up playing. By the time Sandhra was in grade 11, she began to hear her teachers comment that it was time to pick a career.
She flip-flopped between university programs and career options frequently, switching from computer scientist to homicide detective to FBI agent. With a passion for criminal justice and the Canadian legal system, she chose to complete a pre-law degree with a business specialization.
When she entered her first criminal justice course at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), she immediately knew that path was not for her.
Back at the drawing board yet again, she began to panic about the uncertainty of what her career would look like. Sandhra ultimately let herself go with the flow to see where her education as a global business student would take her.
A few months later, Sandhra was watching a Toronto Maple Leafs game in her living room when she came across a TikTok posted by Sports Girls Club, a multi-media platform that “works to bring inclusivity to the sports industry.”
The video montage highlighted women who work in the sports industry with media credentials. It was the text overlayed on the video that read, “Women can work in sports too,” which instantly drew her attention.
At the time, Sandhra was surprised yet intrigued by the idea of women working in sports-related industries, as she had thought women could only be athletes.
Sandhra could only explain the feeling of following that account as “finding my spark again.”
“To this day, I can’t find that TikTok anywhere,” she said, smiling.
From that moment forward, she had her heart set on working in sports and eventually got an internship with Sports Girls Club as a digital content creator, making graphics for their Instagram.
According to a 2022 analysis by the Sport Information Resource Centre, less than 10 per cent of Canadian sports news outlets’ coverage that year highlighted women’s sports, displaying a disparity in coverage between the men’s and women’s teams.
Sandhra has since been elevated throughout Sports Girls Club leadership and now serves as their senior media director of content, overseeing the platform’s digital presence and directing new interns.
Describing her career in sport media as a “full-circle moment,” making bounds from when she was ridiculed out of playing soccer, Sandhra now found the answer to the question of what she wants to do with her career.
“Working with women that had the same goals that I have—which is to be a force in this industry and make our names heard and [get] our foot in the door,” she said.
Both second-year RTA sport media student Kaitlyn LeBoutillier’s parents are physical education teachers, so “sports have been a thing forever” in her family.
She spent all her free time growing up watching sports, which only added to her love of athletics.
“Our TV only has cable still, only because we watch so many sports,” said LeBoutillier.
She started playing baseball, ringette and basketball from three-years-old, playing all three sports competitively until high school. Now, she is pitching and playing first base for the TMU Bold women’s softball team.
When she got into TMU’s RTA sport media program in November 2022, she committed to the program only one day after receiving an admission offer.
“It’s really the only program like it in the country…so it’s been really great,” said LeBoutillier.
Despite her positive attitude and experiences, LeBoutillier has still met resistance. She worked a retail job at Staples before entering university, and when telling her coworkers about the program she chose, her male manager jokingly asked her, “So, we will see you back here in four years?”
Although that comment made her eyes roll, it also fueled LeBoutillier. She has since founded Shutter Sports Media, a TMU-based student-run organization that “covers local to professional sports in our newsletter, podcast and content creation.”
She has also worked professionally as a social media intern for the Jocks in Jills podcast, a weekly show hosted by Olympic ice hockey gold medalist Tessa Bonhomme and broadcaster Julia Tocheri that discusses the top stories in PWHL.
The desire for women’s sports to be mainstream has also grown significantly. UN Women states that media coverage surrounding women’s sports has expanded from five per cent in 2019 to 16 per cent in 2022. If this current growth rate continues, women’s coverage could reach 20 per cent this year.
LeBoutillier is optimistic about her chances of working in women’s sports full-time because of the potential job opportunities that formulate when new female teams and leagues are created, however, she acknowledges more can still be done.
“There are just a lot more women working in women’s sports from the media side, but there are still a lot of the same old guys who cover the women,” she said.
Leah Herrfort, a sixth-year forward for the Waterloo Warriors and prospect for the 2025 PWHL draft class, sees the difference between how women’s hockey was once viewed compared to now. She believes a large part of that shift is due to an increase in media coverage.
“Now when I look on TV, right next to the Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs matchup is the Toronto Sceptres and Montréal Victorie,” Herrfort said. “Hockey is for everyone, it’s not just a man’s sport.”
Having the opportunity to potentially play in a professional hockey league is not one that Herrfort envisioned when she began playing for the Warriors. “Four years ago, there wasn’t a next level,” she said.
“Hockey is for everyone, it’s not just a man’s sport”
The opportunity to work in women’s sports spans far beyond media coverage and athletics—it also provides employment for businesswomen.
Sharlie Anne Brkich, a fourth-year creative industries student and forward for the TMU Bold women’s rugby team, knew she wanted to combine her love for arts and athletics into a career but wasn’t sure how to do it.
She grew curious about the behind-the-scenes work surrounding putting a live sports game on air, including how certain sponsorships formulate and how specialty events are planned.
She knew that in order to work in sports, she would have to “put herself in uncomfortable situations,” so she applied to the Toronto Metropolitan Sports and Business Association (TMSBA), whose leadership included a large number of upper-year and graduate students.
Brkich is now an executive administrator and the only woman on the TMSBA leadership team, which has allowed her to provide insights on how events should be organized to cater to a female audience.
She was able to organize a new TMSBA event called Growing The Game on Feb. 6 that dealt with “learning about how the world of sports is evolving” with the goal to “help empower sports and inspire change.”
The event hosted a fireside chat with AFC Toronto, a founder club of the Northern Super League—Canada’s first professional women’s soccer league—where co-founder Brenda Ha provided students with the chance to network.
“Planning events and really having my opinion and my voice heard, I love having that,” said Brkich.
She is interested in celebrating women for their talents, intelligence and capabilities rather than solely their gender.
“I like to acknowledge the position before acknowledging that they are a woman,” said Brkich. “I talk to wonderfully talented, experienced women and they are here because of how hard they work and the experience they have, not because you are a woman and we need one here.”
Cementing a place in leadership is a step that Morgan Young, the Toronto Tempo’s director of brand and community, identifies with an area she believes needs more enforcement. The Tempo, part of the WNBA, will be Canada’s first professional female basketball team, taking the court in 2026.
“Thinking about all the way down to high school ages, do girls that age know that these pathways exist?” asked Young. “When you do those future job assignments, how come women’s basketball isn’t there?”
At the end of the day, Young believes that while the sport itself is the gift that keeps on giving, it is the work behind the scenes that is being done that will have the same impact.
“Championships are always what we are after, but we want to do good while we are doing that,” she said.
While the work that women in sports are doing—whether in play or in front of a microphone, on the bench or on the phone—the regular testimony that women’s sports are simply aspirational is starting to wear off for many women working in the field.
After the PWHL’s Battle on Bay Street game on Jan. 25, Toronto Sceptres forward Sarah Nurse commented on how the discussion around the PWHL has shifted.
“I think this season as a whole has felt more about hockey,” she said. “Obviously last season we had a season of firsts and it was really special…so this year it really has been a lot about hockey.”
LeBoutillier also acknowledged how excited she is to see the attention switch from record-breaking crowds to the gameplay itself.
“I’m very happy it’s becoming more of a regular thing, going back to being about the sport and can still succeed without all of these records being broken,” she said.
“I don’t really see us as inspiring, I see it as us in it with everyone”
Young believes the skill level of the players on the court should be what drives audiences into arenas, which she said is a “shared mentality” amongst Tempo management.
“I don’t really see us as inspiring, I see it as us in it with everyone,” she said. “When you talk about the next generation, I’m in it with you and we are not carving a pathway forward, we are carving it together.”
Sandhra is already starting to see the tired constraints surrounding women’s sports fade away, thanks to the rising popularity of many successful women’s leagues.
“It is now more so on the skill level of basketball, and you are starting to see that in the PWHL as well,” said Sandhra. “You don’t really hear people say that the WNBA is inspiring young girls, even though it always will.”
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